MISC/HCC: The Queen's Roast, a fairy-tale

Tom Russell joltcity at gmail.com
Sun Jun 11 17:54:59 PDT 2017


On Sunday, June 11, 2017 at 5:03:53 PM UTC-4, Adrian J. McClure wrote:
> 
> I note there has been a thread of interesting gender stuff in Tom's
> stories for a while--a trans character in Seven Against Thebes, and
> Featherweight... Maybe even going back to Multiple Personality Lass in
> Teenfactor.

And Cal Morgan and Hank High as well.

This is intentional on my part, and it really has to do with being much more aware of trans and non-cisgendered folks-- of even being aware of what "cisgendered" means. Partially this is due to greater representation in media (if only a little bit), partially this is because I've met, worked with, and/or interviewed a number of trans and non-cis folks. Partially it's also a reaction to the fact that, in my youth which was spent as a right-wing religious loon (yay parenting) I was very close-minded and parroted bigotries and assumptions that were handed down to me, both in terms of gender roles and race. (There are number of things I wrote in the nineties that I'm deeply ashamed of.)

I got better as a person, and I think as a result my writing has become more inclusive and features more empathy and understanding. At least I hope I have and it has. I know sometimes that that endeavor can be overshadowed by some of the darkness and depression that seeps in for my characters. Cal Morgan, for example, is very much not well-adjusted, and is very much not very happy. Not because she's trans, but because she's human and has the misfortune to be written by me.

I very much envy Drew's ability to write rad queer characters without ever wallowing-- and to write young people generally. That's one reason why I tapped him to do KAIJU KORPS (hi Drew!), because I know if I wrote it, the whole thing would collapse pretty quickly.

==Tom


More information about the racc mailing list